Introduction
Category: So bad you want to gather every existing copy of the film and burn them.
Yes. I’ve done it again. I watched another Bigfoot movie. Why? At this point, I honestly don’t know anymore. Why do I do this to myself? Why do I even spend MONEY on it? This time it was five euros, while strolling through a store downtown, when I spotted the used Blu-ray of Bigfoot Tape, a.k.a. Bigfoot County from 2012.
I actually already had this film on my radar, because it looked “kind of decent.” (Note to self: the nicer a Bigfoot movie looks, the worse it is.)
Five euros, I thought—that’s still reasonable for 80 minutes of entertaining monster fun, and I’m always up for that. While I definitely prefer the older entries in this genre (especially when it comes to Bigfoot movies), one should give newer (sub-)genre efforts a chance too. And with Bigfoot films, you really can’t afford to be picky.
So I put the Blu-ray into the player without high expectations—but at least with the hope of seeing something. Just something. And I didn’t even get that.
Plot
Mysterious music plays, followed by the title appearing in red letters. What comes next are the few seconds that are genuinely the best part of the entire film: the legendary scenes from the legendary Patterson–Gimlin film (every Bigfoot fan has to know this—if you don’t, google it immediately!).
These scenes don’t last long, though. Several title cards follow, read aloud by a grave, portentous voice-over:
“Siskiyou County, California, has the most reported Bigfoot sightings in the world. 913 in the last 25 years. In August 2009, a documentary filmmaker went to investigate the alleged sightings.”
Then we hear audio from a 911 call dated May 13, 2009, in which someone claims that somebody is sneaking around his property. The bastard is “over two meters tall” and is “staring at” the caller. Another title card follows, ominous as hell:
“The following footage was found in 2012.”
After a cheap MovieMaker-style glitch effect, the actual “story” (if you can even call it that) begins. A beach is filmed, and according to a sign, we are at a tea house in Malibu.
Some guy (IMDb later told me his name is Stephon—this is probably mentioned in the film too, but it got lost among the unbelievably stupid dialogue) films himself and explains that he intends to shoot a Bigfoot documentary. More idiotic chatter follows between two other people (the filmmaker’s brother and his girlfriend—thanks again, IMDb: his name is Davee, hers is Shy) at the sink. There are only two weeks left until the “big trip.”
The plan is to interview the guy from the emergency call. The woman helpfully explains that they’ll first have to find him (really?). They go on about wanting everything to feel realistic and planning to camp there. Stephon also explains that the caller’s dog was allegedly torn apart, making this the first aggressive Bigfoot incident—normally, Bigfoots supposedly just mind their own business.
But why did our protagonist even become interested in this case? He explains:
“But, and that’s why, well, it started to interest me, and I found it exciting and wanted to do this thing, I hadn’t planned it at all and was just lucky that this guy had this sighting. This is America’s biggest folkloric (sic!) legend.”
What follows is more nonsense about Bigfoot subspecies: Bigfoot lives in the U.S. and is black, Sasquatch is brown and lives only in Canada, and the Yeti lives in Europe (!). I’ll just let that stand.
“If you manage to film something like this, you go down in history, and I think that’s… very, very cool. Just an exciting thing we’re doing here.”
(That part’s actually true—they’ll go down in history. In the history of the dumbest dialogue I’ve ever had to endure.)
Then it finally “gets going,” and we’re treated to highway footage until the hollow trio boards a plane to California. As with almost all found-footage films, we get minutes of pointless, idiotic dialogue—this time about rubber bands from Stephon’s grandma that supposedly bring him luck.
They finally land, and in the next scene we drive through the (unironically) beautiful forests of California. They stop at a kiosk with a large Bigfoot statue. While the couple stays in the car, a few rednecks looking for trouble complain about the camera.
Then we get interviews with odd-looking people (Americans, you know) sharing “interesting information” about Bigfoot—or about Mexican marijuana growers supposedly living in the woods. Luckily (or unfortunately for the viewer), someone knows the guy from the recording, and the film crew goes to meet him.
He initially threatens them with an axe, but once he calms down, he tells them about his encounter with Bigfoot and that he was looking for a “sign from God” or something like that. In any case, he soon leads the trio deep into the forest and… well, that’s pretty much it. Nothing else of importance happens. At least nothing I should, could, or want to elaborate on further.
Review
I know I’m repeating myself, but with Bigfoot films you have to be very careful and at least be prepared for “nothing”—as in literally seeing nothing.
And horror fans know another genre where caution is advised: found footage. Pretty much anyone can shoot something and declare it a film. For obvious reasons. Grab a phone, shake the camera, scream, flicker some lights, press it onto a disc, and sell it to clueless people like me—just slap together a nice cover in Photoshop (nowadays Midjourney probably suffices).
And yet, the genre has produced some genuinely good films. The Blair Witch Project (1999), a modern classic that many people hate and many love—I’m firmly in the latter camp. I should also note that it wasn’t actually the first found-footage film ever, despite popular belief. That was probably The McPherson Tape (1989), about an alien abduction, which I found rather underwhelming. Still recommended if you’re interested—it’s available from Vinegar Syndrome and only runs about an hour. You could even argue that Cannibal Holocaust fits the label in a distant sense.
Other decent entries? I liked Cloverfield (2007). And as hidden gems, I’d mention the two Creep films (2014 and 2017), which I stumbled upon on Netflix.
Other than that, I’ve mostly seen mediocre or bad ones—some at least somewhat interesting, like Area 51 (2013), The Gracefield Incident (2017), or The Phoenix Tapes (2016). Others were downright awful or infuriating, such as Devil’s Pass (2013) or 11:23 – 09:59 (Project Fear) from 2014.
Besides the issue that these films can be made without talent or budget, the biggest problem of the genre (in my opinion) is that they lure you in with fascinating topics that they then almost never execute satisfactorily—Area 51 or the Dyatlov Pass incident, for example.
And now we get the worst possible combination: the genre where cameras shake and people scream for no reason, and the genre where nothing ever happens except people walking through forests. Found footage plus Bigfoot.
And what can I say? Exactly that happens here—or rather, doesn’t happen. Nothing happens. Absolutely nothing.
Despite this, the front of the Blu-ray proudly features a bombastic quote (which you should never trust anyway):
“Intense… almost made me jump out of my seat – Ain’t It Cool News” (sounds legit).
For the back cover, they couldn’t even find something positive and just quoted an IMDb review:
“If you like found footage, watch it. If not, don’t.”
This time, that statement is actually accurate. I almost did jump out of my seat—but out of rage and despair. By the end, I simply couldn’t believe what I’d been served. As both a Bigfoot fan and a film fan, I feel genuinely cheated.
You call a film Bigfoot Country (for whatever reason it was retitled in Germany), put Bigfoot on the cover—and then what? Nothing. Nothing. NOTHING. How was this produced? How was this pressed onto disc? This isn’t worth the Blu-ray material—hell, it’s not even worth the plastic of the damn case!
WHY? I still ask myself that today, and probably always will, because there simply is no answer.
The plot summary is already short, and even if I’d written a long review (had that been the case, I’d probably be hooked up to an IV by now), it wouldn’t be funnier or much longer. Because—once again—nothing happens.
Let’s summarize: three unbelievably stupid, unlikeable people want to make a Bigfoot documentary and go into a forest somewhere in California. Some religious nut leads them into the woods, abandons them, and the three idiots wander around for the remaining 60 minutes without anything happening.
You could have done anything—and it would’ve been more interesting than this. Incredibly stupid dialogue, laugh-out-loud bad lines (“I think this is a fire access road”). The girlfriend is kidnapped, and a few scenes later someone asks, “Is there an echo here?”
In the dark, the camera shakes like an epileptic cameraman just downed three bottles of vodka. People scream, cough, and yell nonsense like “they’re everywhere!” to distract from the fact that there is—once again—NOTHING. No ideas. No reason to make a film. No talent. No motivation. No love for the medium.
Because if they’d had any of that, they would’ve either not made this at all—or destroyed it immediately after finishing it. I refuse to believe the filmmakers watched this and felt satisfied.
Spoiler warning (for those still insane enough to want to watch it—don’t): there is no Bigfoot. In the end, it’s just some stoned rednecks who decided to scare the three morons at night by banging stones together and making monkey noises.
How did they pull the tent away without being seen? No idea. For one second, something black darts through the woods—but it looks more like a wild boar than a Bigfoot. So what was that? Did they dress up?
And why didn’t the rednecks just shoot the film crew during the first encounter, when one of the stoners threatened them with a rifle? That would’ve been better for everyone.
The finale: the rednecks dump our “protagonist” on a dirt road (after abusing him), conveniently leaving the camera with him. And then comes the moment that truly made me furious. Up until then, I could’ve said: “Okay, dumb, bad, pointless, but fine.” I might’ve even given it three or four points for unintentional laughs.
But then—the producer’s middle finger: Bigfoot walks across the road in the background for one second.
WHY?! You clearly had an ape suit (or whatever that was)—why not use it?! Even 70-year-old B-movies did this better (I’m talking about those glorious Poverty Row ape films). Even YouTube parodies do it better (just search for “Butchy Kid Videos”).
Or at least do it like Asylum and animate a giant Bigfoot. It’ll look like crap, but at least something happens and the title and cover would be somewhat justified.
Instead, we get this. The audacity is unbelievable. I’m extremely tolerant when it comes to monster trash. I even found something to like in Curse of Bigfoot—because it showed a Bigfoot. I even found something to like in In Search of Bigfoot (1976)—because the nature photography was nice and it captured some of the Patterson–Gimlin atmosphere at the start.
Every Bigfoot filmmaker who makes even a minimal effort does better than Stephon Stewart, the main culprit behind this cinematic insult. He combines lack of ideas, audacity, and incompetence in one person—as director, producer, “screenwriter” (there was a script?!), and “lead actor” as Stephon Lancaster.
The “acting” doesn’t even stand out negatively, simply because everything else is so bad. This project is on the level of a home video, and you wouldn’t rate acting there either.
Thankfully, he only made one more film afterward (Zugzwang, 2014—apparently about chess and murder). Don’t care.
What is shocking is that he managed to hire actual actors. Davee Youngblood (what a name) even appeared in series like Lucifer—granted, only as “Man,” but still. Shy Pilgreen has several other credits too, though none anyone likely knows. The most successful might be Travis, the Christian Bigfoot hunter, with 59 IMDb credits, though mostly as an extra.
Even within this toilet-paper-level story, questions remain. Was Travis in on it? Was he bait? Who killed his dog? What did he actually see? Psychosis?
Why didn’t the hippies just shoot them? And WHY did they leave the camera next to their victim? The camera that recorded everything?!
There is nothing left to evaluate. No story. No action. No horror. No intelligence. No atmosphere. No Bigfoot.
Why do filmmakers hate Bigfoot and his fans so much? This topic has so much potential—and yet 99% of it is garbage.
Conclusion
I don’t like rants. Even with terrible films, I try to find something positive. I usually don’t even review films I find this bad.
But this one made me genuinely angry. I had to vent.
Consider this a warning: don’t be fooled by the cover, the tagline, or the title. Watch Curse of Bigfoot instead. Or literally anything else. Just not this.
Today’s punishment: Curse of Bigfoot got two beers. The Worm Eaters got three. Even films often labeled “the worst of all time” (Daniel the Wizard, Plan 9, The Beast of Yucca Flats) deserve more than Bigfoot Tape.
Zero beers. And that’s still too many.
Or as Aunt Marianne would say: “If I had to give points for this, they’d owe me some.”
And bombs? What’s “bad” about nothing? The only trashy thing here is the unbelievably stupid dialogue. So just four bombs.
There should be a separate scale measuring anger. This film would max it out.
